I sat upon a hill in Ponyville Park, a lone tree sheltering me from the worst of the rain. Somehow, the fact I had come to this particular hill only drove home harder everything that was wrong with this current situation.
It was the hill where Sunshine and I had shared our first real kiss.
It bothered me that I couldn’t feel even the existence of our connection in my mind. If this was all an illusion, it shouldn’t mess with thaumic connections. Connections like that leave an indelible residue, one that was hard to dismiss or destroy.
I heard a hoof squish in the mud behind me.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Twilight said.
“Did you, really?” I asked, not turning to look at her.
I heard her shift on her hooves. “No,” she admitted. “I checked a few places before this one..”
I stared off at the shrouded shape of Canterlot in the distance. It looked smaller, but it was likely the rain making things hazy.
“I kissed her here, Twilight. For the first time, without uncertainty. And it’s where most of our shared dreams take place. It’s supposed to be a place of joy, but looking at it now makes it hurt even more.”
She settled beside me and sat there for a second before draping a foreleg over my shoulders.
“We’ll figure this out, Sunset.” Twilight’s voice was firm. “We’ve faced harder tasks than this before. Sorla, Chrysalis, The Storm King —“
“That was technically just you,” I reminded her. “I was on my honeymoon.”
“Er… Entropy?”
“That one was us,” I said, feeling my spirits lift a little.
“When the rain stops, we’ll make it to Canterlot and see what we can find out,” Twilight nodded. “But first, let’s get you out of the rain so we can get some sleep. Won’t do us any good if we’re sick and exhausted while researching.”
I stood and sighed.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said as we walked back to the Apple’s farm.
As we departed I turned and looked at the hill one last time, it was hazy through the rain and it didn’t make me feel any better.
We were woken up by the curtains being flung open the next morning. A spry looking Granny Smith stood by the window and clapped her hooves.
“C’mon, now,” she admonished. “Half the day is gone and yer still in bed.”
I groaned and stumbled to my hooves. “What time is it?”
I had never been a morning pony.
“Round ‘bout seven in the morning.” Granny Smith said, making her way to the door. “Now git moving. The daughter-in-law has a bundle fer you two.”
If anything, I think Twilight was more sleep-addled than myself. She trudged forward with her head down and mane sticking up at odd angles.
“Where’re we going?” she slurred.
“Breakfast, I think,” I mumbled back.
The Apple family was just as energetic in the early hours as they were in the evening. There was a bunch of talking and laughing as they planned their day. The presence of strong coffee helped Twilight and I wake up fully, though as the family started separating and heading out, Pear Butter looked at us carefully.
“You two look like you’ve got an awful lot on your shoulders.” She wrapped a few extra things into the packs she had in front of her. “You’re too young to look so worn.”
I chuckled ruefully.
“Life has some rough edges sometimes,” I remarked. “We just seem to have been finding more of them lately.”
Twilight nodded. “And bouncing off them at times.”
“I believe it,” the mare said, sliding a wrapped parcel over to us. “Now don’t you fret about returning that cloth. I’ve got plenty more where that came from. But if you ever come through again, just knock. Our door is always open.”
We waved and left, heading for Ponyville proper once again.
“Well, no way to avoid it,” I said as we stared at the Golden Oaks. “First place to check for any information before we head to Canterlot.”
Twilight nodded.
“It’s Moondancer,” she replied. “She should be able to help us find what we’re looking for.”
We walked up and Twilight knocked on the door just under the hours sign. A few moments later, the door swung open and a sleepy Moondancer looked out at us, her mane still showing a few snags from bedhead.
“I’m sorry, but the library doesn’t open for another hour,” she said apologetically. “But if you can tell me what you’re looking for, I can focus on reshelving that section first.”
“We're looking for anything about large scale illusion spells and translocation effects,” Twilight said. “If you have anything of Heycarte or Clover the Clever, that would be great.”
Moondancer shuffled on her hooves, glancing away for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I don’t carry any magical tomes, not even references on them. They keep those in the Royal Archives. You’ll have to ask the Chamberlain for access.”
“Oh, ok,” I said. “We’ll just book an appointment when we get to Canterlot then.”
Moondancer looked at me in confusion. “But the Castle is out in the Everfree Forest, maybe three hours walk from here. Why would you go to Canterlot?”
I blinked t, then looked to the mountain in the distance. Sure enough, the towering spires and minarets that had made up the Palace were missing from the cosmopolitan skyline.
“Why would Celestia keep the castle in the forest?” Twilight murmured.
“SHHH!” Moondancer waved her hooves. “We don’t speak her name. The destruction she wrought took years to put right. Queen Luna still regrets her actions to this day no matter how necessary they were.”
Twilight and I shared a look.
Queen Luna?
“I could send word ahead, if you’d like.” Moondancer brushed a hoof along her mane, trying to get some of the snarls to settle. “I was friends with one of her hoofmaidens as fillies. I’m not sure why you need those books, but for some reason, I trust that you aren’t bad ponies.”
“We don’t want to trouble you,” I said. “We’ve taken up enough of your time.”
The librarian chewed at her lip. “When you do manage to get an audience, let Fluttershy know that the bunny she used to care for passed.”
“Oh, the poor thing,” Twilight whispered.
“Don’t get too sad,” Moondancer replied. “That thing was an absolute demon.”
I chewed the bit of pie from our bundled lunch. Everything that had happened swirling in my mind. I was good at applying facts but I was still baffled.
Meanwhile, Twilight poked at her pie as though debating eating it.
“None of this makes sense,” she said suddenly.
“What was your first clue?”
“This is too divergent for our appearance to be illusions.” She broke off a stick and started drawing in a patch of dirt. “I could see our wings being hidden from sight, but that wouldn’t mask your scar or our ability to feel them.” A few more dashes of the stick followed her words. “Also, making the entire world forget us as princesses? That is a spell I haven’t even heard of.”
I looked at the diagram she was drawing, creasing my brow as I tried to decipher some of the ideograms she drew.
“What is that?” I asked.
She drew one last symbol on the image before casting her stick away.
“Haycarte had a theorem, one that we both have recently found to be true. Multiple realities, mirrored realms, multiverse, call it whatever you want. We must have been thrust into one when we were thrown into that lake.”
“Why, though?” I asked. “The Deer certainly have easier ways to deal with us that keep us from being threats. Those memory stones, the forest itself, why go through the trouble of sending us to another reality?”
“I don’t know.” Twilight sighed.
“So, are we going to see the Queen?”
The muscles along Twilight’s side twitched, and I saw it as a subconscious effort to ruffle her wings. I had done it a few times myself.
“I don’t know. Apparently, the Celestia of this world was horrible and Luna had to do something to stop her, something she regrets to this day.”
“A strange parallel,” I murmured.
“And the idea of a Queen is…well, it’s unusual, to say the least. Celestia never once claimed queenship while Luna was banished. Why would this Luna do so?”
“Maybe we can ask when we see her,” I suggested. “She may be a dour old pony, but she’s wise enough to believe us when we tell her our story, I hope.”
We both looked down the hill at the dark edge of the Everfree Forest. Only instead of the thick and snarled brush, a clean stonework path was laid, the stones tightly fit and a guard in midnight blue armor standing by it. Even the foreboding air the place had, in the Equestria we knew, was severely lessened.
I packed up my food, wiping my mouth with the corner of the kerchiefs that served as wrappings.
“After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”